Fuad al-Rikabi

Fuad al-Rikabi (1931-November 1971) was the Regional Secretary of the Regional Command of the Iraqi Regional Branch from 1954 to 29 November 1959, succeeding Fakhri Qadduri and preceding Talib el-Shibib.

Biography
Fuad al-Rikabi was born in 1931 in Nasiriyah, Kingdom of Iraq to a Shia Muslim family. Rikabi was one of the founders of the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Ba'ath Party in 1951, and in 1954 he succeeded Fakhri Qadduri as its Regional Secretary, leading the Ba'ath Party and leading recruitment drives in Shi'ite areas, building up the party's membership. From 1958 to 1959 he served as Minister of Development under Abd al-Karim Qasim's government, but in 1959 the Ba'ath Party split between Rikabi's side - the supporters of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Nasserism - and the other faction, which supported Michel Aflaq. Rikabi was expelled from the leadership on 29 November 1959 and from the party as a whole in 1962, and he joined Abdul Rahman Arif's Arab Socialist Union. In 1971, he was arrested by Saddam Hussein's government and was executed.